Job summary
We are looking for an experienced Dietitian to provide a Dietetic service to adult patients who have had a stroke. The Dietitian will assess and treat patients on the acute stroke ward at Torbay Hospital and the stroke rehabilitation ward at Newton Abbot hospital, with the main focus on oral and enteral nutritional support. Tube feeding forms a large part of the clinical caseload.
The post holder will work as an autonomous practitioner and alongside the stroke multidisciplinary team (MDT). The Dietitian will be the nutrition expert within those teams andbe a highly skilled Dietitian with a dynamic, self-motivated and innovative approach to your work. You will be passionate about patient care, with excellent communication and engagement skills, team working and strong time management.
The job is based at a number of community locations including Newton Abbot and Torquay (Community Dietetics base). A proportion of your time will be spent travelling between locations and you must be able to travel independently and have access to a car on a daily basis.
Working hours must include Friday.
This role may only be combined with an existing post. It may be combined with post for 0.5 WTE Band 6 Community Clinical Dietitian which is also out to advert to form 0.7 WTE.
Main duties of the job
- To provide a Dietetic inpatient service to adult patients who have had a stroke (Stroke Acute and Rehabilitation Wards at Torbay Hospital and Newton Abbot Hospital). The main focus is on nutritional support (oral nutritional support, modified consistency and tube feeds). Enteral tube feeding forms a large part of the clinical caseload.
- To work collaboratively and as an active member of the stroke multidisciplinary and rehabilitation team, to include attendance at MDT meetings.
- To be the source of nutritional expertise in stroke to support patients, carers and health care professionals.
- To be responsible for the development of the dietetic stroke service with support from other stroke Dietitians, Dietetic Team Lead, Head of Nutrition and Dietetics and the Stroke Team.
- To carry out other duties as agreed by the Head of Nutrition and Dietetics.
About us
The post holder will work alongside the stroke teams whilst maintaining regular contact with the Community and wider Dietetics team for professional and clinical support.
The Community Clinical team of Dietitians are based at Torbay Hospital and are part of the wider dietetic team including Acute, Diabetes, Paediatrics, Lifestyles, and Cancer Services. The team has over 40 staff members - dietitians, dietetic support workers and admin support.
The Community Clinical Dietitians are a friendly, supportive, proactive and professional team, which has increased in size over recent years following investment in a number of areas.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Detailed job description and responsibilities
Communication and working relationships
- To work as an integral member of the stroke MDT
- To communicate and establish working relationships with:
- Stroke Consultants, Stroke Consultant AHP, Ward Managers and Matrons
- Speech and Language Therapists and other therapies.
- Stroke MDT, rehabilitation teams, ward medical and nursing teams.
- Nutrition Team, Consultant Gastroenterologists and Nutrition Nurse Specialists
- Home Enteral Feeding (HEF) Dietitians and HEF Team
- Catering department
- Early Support Discharge (ESD) team
- Local Dietetic Team, including community clinical and acute teams of Dietitians
- Other Specialist Stroke Dietitians, locally and regionally to share best practice
- Students Dietetic and other professions
- Other health and social care professionals
Planning and organisation
- To manage own clinical caseload as an autonomous practitioner within the stroke service
- To manage own time, prioritise clinical referrals and manage the demands received from different parts of the service
- To plan, organise and develop the dietetic service in stroke, with support from the Dietetic Team Leads, Head of Service and Stroke Teams
- To collate evidence to evaluate this post, for example, identifying the strengths of service provision, patient activity statistics, health outcomes and patient satisfaction (e.g. Friend and Family Tests)
- Actively evaluate the dietetic stroke service, identifying any areas for development, together with the other stroke Dietitian, and with support from senior members of stroke and dietetics
- To plan, organise, deliver and evaluate training sessions to a variety of groups including health and social care professionals and patients. Training may be face to face or using Microsoft Teams
Responsibility and accountability
- To be the nutritional lead in the Stroke Service to ensure patients have high quality nutritional care, together with another stroke specialist dietitian (depending on the organisation of the team)
- To deliver Dietetic care to a caseload of adult patients, who have had a stroke in collaboration with the MDT
- To provide a source of expert knowledge and advice on nutrition to the stroke service
- To carry out other duties as agreed with the Head of Nutrition and Dietetics and the Clinical Community Team Lead
Responsibility for patients and client care
- To deliver Dietetic care to a caseload of adult patients who have had a stroke/under the care of the stroke team
- To undertake nutritional assessments by examination and history taking. This includes calculation of nutritional requirements; interpret biochemistry results and assessing the efficacy, safety and routes of nutritional support. Assessments may be either face to face or remotely as clinically indicated
- To initiate appropriate Dietetic treatment and/or referral, and to signpost to other appropriate services
- To provide high quality, complex nutritional and dietetic individualised advice enabling patients to make informed choices about their own health
- To liaise closely with ward teams and catering staff to support the provision of appropriate diets, including modified consistency
- To provide resources such as patient information leaflets, recipes and menu plans
- To maintain accurate and timely documentation of patient interactions and clinical care provided
- To be a patient advocate and support patients following a stroke. Use behaviour change and advanced communication techniques daily
- To provide a source of expert knowledge and advice on nutrition to the stroke teams
- To have active involvement in MDT discussions and decisions around nutritional care and feeding decisions about medically, socially and ethically challenging patients. For example, decision making with feeding plans and consideration of tube feeding, patients lacking mental capacity, end of life care, best interest meetings and safeguarding
- Promote proactive nutritional care to reduce the need for additional healthcare, for example timely discharge from hospital
- Ensure safe and timely discharge of tube fed patients from hospital to home, with the support of the nutrition team, ward staff and home enteral feeding team
- To be aware of, identify and raise safeguarding issues observed during clinical practice
- To provide support where quality or safeguarding issues have been identified
- To support the ESD team (Early Supported Discharge) and secondary prevention of stroke as able and when clinical workload/clinical prioritisation allows
Policy and service responsibility
- To contribute to the writing of policies, resources and guidelines relevant to this role, with the support from Stroke and Dietetic teams
- To provide resources such as patient information leaflets, recipes and menu plans
- To contribute to the wider service development of the Dietetic service.
- To follow Trust Policies and Procedures
- To undertake clinical practice in line with local policy and guidelines, such as refeeding, enteral feeding and nutrition screening
- To relate clinical practice to broader clinical guidelines, including NICE
- To promote the role and value of the Dietitian in all aspects of nutritional care
- To attend other relevant team meetings which may include stroke management meetings and dietetic meetings
- To provide an annual summary of stroke dietetic service to the Clinical Community Team Lead
Responsibility for finance, equipment and other resources
- The post carries no budgetary responsibility
- To take anthropometric measurements to assess nutritional status, including the use of weighing scales, calipers, grip strength during patient assessments
- To promote the clinical and cost-effective use of oral nutritional supplements, for example, when inpatients are discharged from hospital into the community
Responsibility for supervision, leadership and management
- To provide nutrition expertise within the stroke teams
- To provide clinical support and supervision to Dietetic Support Workers and Band 5 Dietitians, which may include monthly 121s and annual achievement reviews, supported by the Team Lead and with appropriate training
- To delegate and supervise tasks to Dietetic Support Worker and other members of the support team
- To support and supervise other members of the Community Clinical Team and wider Dietetics department, providing cross cover as required. This may include seeing stroke patients on other wards
- To participate in the training of student dietitians and students of other professions
- To provide cover for specialist dietitians (with appropriate training) during periods of leave
- To actively support own wellbeing, as well as to support the wellbeing of the other members of the team
Information technology and administrative duties
- To use Trust IT systems
- To accurately record own Dietetic activity using computerised statistics and to collate this data for service evaluation and development purposes
- To use Attend Anywhere or equivalent for patient assessments, when clinically appropriate
- To prepare own presentations, reports and documents
- Maintain clinical records including Dietetic records and GP letters and in line with professional and department standards. Use electronic patient records where available
- To work within the requirements of Data protection legislation and access to health records
- To communicate via email, social media and other internal IT systems
- To use Microsoft Teams to attend meetings and deliver training virtually
- Use IT to project manage and collect data for service evaluation
Responsibility for research and development
- To be responsible for own continued professional development and be proactive within annual Achievement Reviews and monthly 121s with Team Lead
- To maintain and improve professional knowledge through CPD (continued professional development), for example, journal review, shadowing, attendance at courses/conferences/webinars as agreed with the Team and the wider dietetic department
- To liaise with other specialist dietitians within the South West region and nationally
- To work within the HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council) Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics and the BDA (British Dietetic Association) Code of Professional Conduct
- To proactively identify and undertake project work to develop the service to provide high quality nutritional care to stroke patients
- Produce reports/summaries to monitor, evaluate and provide feedback about the service
- To identify and participate in relevant audit and research projects to evaluate nutritional care in stroke, with the support of team lead and stroke team
Job description
Job responsibilities
Detailed job description and responsibilities
Communication and working relationships
- To work as an integral member of the stroke MDT
- To communicate and establish working relationships with:
- Stroke Consultants, Stroke Consultant AHP, Ward Managers and Matrons
- Speech and Language Therapists and other therapies.
- Stroke MDT, rehabilitation teams, ward medical and nursing teams.
- Nutrition Team, Consultant Gastroenterologists and Nutrition Nurse Specialists
- Home Enteral Feeding (HEF) Dietitians and HEF Team
- Catering department
- Early Support Discharge (ESD) team
- Local Dietetic Team, including community clinical and acute teams of Dietitians
- Other Specialist Stroke Dietitians, locally and regionally to share best practice
- Students Dietetic and other professions
- Other health and social care professionals
Planning and organisation
- To manage own clinical caseload as an autonomous practitioner within the stroke service
- To manage own time, prioritise clinical referrals and manage the demands received from different parts of the service
- To plan, organise and develop the dietetic service in stroke, with support from the Dietetic Team Leads, Head of Service and Stroke Teams
- To collate evidence to evaluate this post, for example, identifying the strengths of service provision, patient activity statistics, health outcomes and patient satisfaction (e.g. Friend and Family Tests)
- Actively evaluate the dietetic stroke service, identifying any areas for development, together with the other stroke Dietitian, and with support from senior members of stroke and dietetics
- To plan, organise, deliver and evaluate training sessions to a variety of groups including health and social care professionals and patients. Training may be face to face or using Microsoft Teams
Responsibility and accountability
- To be the nutritional lead in the Stroke Service to ensure patients have high quality nutritional care, together with another stroke specialist dietitian (depending on the organisation of the team)
- To deliver Dietetic care to a caseload of adult patients, who have had a stroke in collaboration with the MDT
- To provide a source of expert knowledge and advice on nutrition to the stroke service
- To carry out other duties as agreed with the Head of Nutrition and Dietetics and the Clinical Community Team Lead
Responsibility for patients and client care
- To deliver Dietetic care to a caseload of adult patients who have had a stroke/under the care of the stroke team
- To undertake nutritional assessments by examination and history taking. This includes calculation of nutritional requirements; interpret biochemistry results and assessing the efficacy, safety and routes of nutritional support. Assessments may be either face to face or remotely as clinically indicated
- To initiate appropriate Dietetic treatment and/or referral, and to signpost to other appropriate services
- To provide high quality, complex nutritional and dietetic individualised advice enabling patients to make informed choices about their own health
- To liaise closely with ward teams and catering staff to support the provision of appropriate diets, including modified consistency
- To provide resources such as patient information leaflets, recipes and menu plans
- To maintain accurate and timely documentation of patient interactions and clinical care provided
- To be a patient advocate and support patients following a stroke. Use behaviour change and advanced communication techniques daily
- To provide a source of expert knowledge and advice on nutrition to the stroke teams
- To have active involvement in MDT discussions and decisions around nutritional care and feeding decisions about medically, socially and ethically challenging patients. For example, decision making with feeding plans and consideration of tube feeding, patients lacking mental capacity, end of life care, best interest meetings and safeguarding
- Promote proactive nutritional care to reduce the need for additional healthcare, for example timely discharge from hospital
- Ensure safe and timely discharge of tube fed patients from hospital to home, with the support of the nutrition team, ward staff and home enteral feeding team
- To be aware of, identify and raise safeguarding issues observed during clinical practice
- To provide support where quality or safeguarding issues have been identified
- To support the ESD team (Early Supported Discharge) and secondary prevention of stroke as able and when clinical workload/clinical prioritisation allows
Policy and service responsibility
- To contribute to the writing of policies, resources and guidelines relevant to this role, with the support from Stroke and Dietetic teams
- To provide resources such as patient information leaflets, recipes and menu plans
- To contribute to the wider service development of the Dietetic service.
- To follow Trust Policies and Procedures
- To undertake clinical practice in line with local policy and guidelines, such as refeeding, enteral feeding and nutrition screening
- To relate clinical practice to broader clinical guidelines, including NICE
- To promote the role and value of the Dietitian in all aspects of nutritional care
- To attend other relevant team meetings which may include stroke management meetings and dietetic meetings
- To provide an annual summary of stroke dietetic service to the Clinical Community Team Lead
Responsibility for finance, equipment and other resources
- The post carries no budgetary responsibility
- To take anthropometric measurements to assess nutritional status, including the use of weighing scales, calipers, grip strength during patient assessments
- To promote the clinical and cost-effective use of oral nutritional supplements, for example, when inpatients are discharged from hospital into the community
Responsibility for supervision, leadership and management
- To provide nutrition expertise within the stroke teams
- To provide clinical support and supervision to Dietetic Support Workers and Band 5 Dietitians, which may include monthly 121s and annual achievement reviews, supported by the Team Lead and with appropriate training
- To delegate and supervise tasks to Dietetic Support Worker and other members of the support team
- To support and supervise other members of the Community Clinical Team and wider Dietetics department, providing cross cover as required. This may include seeing stroke patients on other wards
- To participate in the training of student dietitians and students of other professions
- To provide cover for specialist dietitians (with appropriate training) during periods of leave
- To actively support own wellbeing, as well as to support the wellbeing of the other members of the team
Information technology and administrative duties
- To use Trust IT systems
- To accurately record own Dietetic activity using computerised statistics and to collate this data for service evaluation and development purposes
- To use Attend Anywhere or equivalent for patient assessments, when clinically appropriate
- To prepare own presentations, reports and documents
- Maintain clinical records including Dietetic records and GP letters and in line with professional and department standards. Use electronic patient records where available
- To work within the requirements of Data protection legislation and access to health records
- To communicate via email, social media and other internal IT systems
- To use Microsoft Teams to attend meetings and deliver training virtually
- Use IT to project manage and collect data for service evaluation
Responsibility for research and development
- To be responsible for own continued professional development and be proactive within annual Achievement Reviews and monthly 121s with Team Lead
- To maintain and improve professional knowledge through CPD (continued professional development), for example, journal review, shadowing, attendance at courses/conferences/webinars as agreed with the Team and the wider dietetic department
- To liaise with other specialist dietitians within the South West region and nationally
- To work within the HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council) Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics and the BDA (British Dietetic Association) Code of Professional Conduct
- To proactively identify and undertake project work to develop the service to provide high quality nutritional care to stroke patients
- Produce reports/summaries to monitor, evaluate and provide feedback about the service
- To identify and participate in relevant audit and research projects to evaluate nutritional care in stroke, with the support of team lead and stroke team
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Dietetics qualification
- HCPC Registration
- Clinical experience - nutritional support, stroke , tube feeding or similar
Desirable
- Post graduate study
- Behaviour change training
- Clinical Supervisory Skills Training
Knowledge and Experience
Essential
- Clinical experience relevant to role
- Autonomous practitioner
- Knowledge of clinical guidelines
- Working knowledge of clinical dietetics
- Deliver training
Desirable
- Participation in research and development
- Experience of developing service
- Experience PEG Ax/discharging tube feeds home
- Experience MDT working
- Involvement in safeguarding
Requirements due to work environment
Essential
- Access to car and ability to travel independently between settings
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Dietetics qualification
- HCPC Registration
- Clinical experience - nutritional support, stroke , tube feeding or similar
Desirable
- Post graduate study
- Behaviour change training
- Clinical Supervisory Skills Training
Knowledge and Experience
Essential
- Clinical experience relevant to role
- Autonomous practitioner
- Knowledge of clinical guidelines
- Working knowledge of clinical dietetics
- Deliver training
Desirable
- Participation in research and development
- Experience of developing service
- Experience PEG Ax/discharging tube feeds home
- Experience MDT working
- Involvement in safeguarding
Requirements due to work environment
Essential
- Access to car and ability to travel independently between settings
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
